The Kim Kardashian game, which has players attempting to become famous in Hollywood, was a breakout hit, pulling in $US43 million ($55 million) in its first three months after its launch last June. It has now been downloaded more than 28 million times.

While the game is free to download, players pay real money for the game's "Koins" currency, which is used to make in-app purchases, such as new clothes for their character, and ads are shown to non-paying users.

Animoca chief executive Robby Yung told The Australian Financial Review, his company had not yet finalised plans for the game, but said it would focus heavily on celebrity, fashion and style. He said the company was excited to be working with Paris Hilton, but conceded it would be unrealistic to expect success to mirror the Kim Kardashian game.

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"I think the experience that Glu and Kim Kardashian had together will be difficult to replicate for anybody, just because being the first one out of the gate with that kind of success always brings disproportionate results," Mr Yung said.

"Even Glu's follow-on with Katy Perry may have a difficult time in living up to their experience with Kim Kardashian, but having said that, we think there is a large audience and a large fan base for Paris Hilton, who would appreciate this kind of game content."

Animoca has already had several popular titles, pumped out by its team of about 70 developers. A franchise of titles featuring cartoon cat Garfield is the most successful in a stable that also includes Astro Boy, Ben 10 and Japanese manga character Doraemon.

Mr Yung said the company would pursue a so-called freemium strategy, whereby games are free to download, but then make money by charging for in-app purchases and showing ads to other users.

Kim Kardashian's mobile app game was a breakout hit, pulling in $US43 million in its first three months following launch last June. It has now been downloaded more than 28 million times.
Reuters

The company has developed numerous basic generic game engines for games like shoot 'em ups, role playing, and time management, which they tweak and add popular characters to, in order to create branded games.

While Mr Yung said the Paris Hilton game still had to be designed, in consultation with Paris Hilton herself, an earlier Animoca game called Star Girl, which "puts you in the high heels of an aspiring celebrity who is setting out to build her career as a superstar," looked ripe for repurposing.

Mr Yung said Animoca was following a portfolio approach, launching numerous titles each year due to the "hit and miss" nature of creating a hit game. Therefore, he said he was not putting too much importance on the Paris Hilton franchise in terms of the long-term expectations for the company.

"We try not to focus on having big hits, because many game developers have done that and it is a policy fraught with a lot of risk, because you end up putting all your eggs in one basket, by launching one or two titles a year," he said.

Singer Katy Perry has an app game coming out towards the end of the year
AFP

Mr Yung said day-to-day running of the company had remained largely unchanged since it went public, and said listing the company was the best option for future funding.

He said private equity funding for growth-stage firms had slowed to a trickle, and felt that many investors were gun-shy towards gaming firms because of the struggles of FarmVille creator Zynga.

Zynga was trading at $US14.50 on the Nasdaq shortly after its 2012 listing, but now languishes at about $US2.30 after struggling to replicate the popularity of early titles.

"Zynga scared a lot of investors, particularly because it was so high profile. Unfortunately, it had the effect with some investors of throwing the baby out with the bath water and deciding that gaming as a sector was inherently risky as the result of one particular example," Mr Yung said.

"That is why we want to maintain a balanced portfolio to the best extent possible. Obviously, every new arrangement is important, but in terms of percentage of business, I do not expect the Paris Hilton games to be disproportionately large."